Canada is a creative powerhouse. From global musical sensations and trailblazing beats, to electric comedy and captivating edutainment, Toronto has long been an epicentre for creative talent.

Today we officially open YouTube Space Toronto to supercharge one of the largest creator communities in North America! YouTube Space Toronto will be a creative industry incubator, offering creators an opportunity to learn from industry experts, connect with fellow YouTubers in a collaborative setting and use the latest latest film equipment to createmore ambitious and innovative video content.

Learn: From training programs and workshops to master classes, there are plenty of opportunities to get hands-on experience from industry experts.

Connect: Attend events, collaborate with fellow creators, brainstorm ideas, and share tips and tricks to get the most out of YouTube.

Create: This is your space to make your videos and there are resources to help you from start to finish, including areas for creative collaboration; loaner production equipment such as cameras, lights, boom microphones, and more; rotating sets and enclosed sound stage.

The Canadian creator scene is one of the world’s most vibrant YouTube communities, with many of the world’s top YouTube creators hailing from Canada. We’re thrilled to open our doors to this incredible community, as well as the next generation of YouTube artists, musicians and entertainers, who are looking build their channels and share their content with YouTube’s audience of one billion people.

The entrance to YouTube Space Toronto at George Brown College

Today, YouTube Space Toronto joins a list of eight other cities to have a YouTube Space, all of which are also known for their local creative industries. Since March 2015, creators filming in YouTube Spaces globally have produced over 10,000 videos, which have generated over 1 billion views and 70+ million hours of watchtime.

Play button recipients at the YouTube Space Toronto Opening. Collectively, the creators in attendance had 70 million subscribers - or twice the population of Canada!

For the latest YouTube Space Toronto news and events, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

We can’t wait to see what happens when Canadian creators have a Space to call their own. One thing we know for sure, the world will be watching!

Growing up as a kid, my favorite basketball player was Magic Johnson. I wanted nothing more than to be able to watch him play in person, but unfortunately I never got the chance. Whether it’s a sporting event or a concert or even a family gathering, all of us have had the feeling of wanting to be somewhere we couldn’t. But these days, virtual reality and 360-degree video can help get you one step closer to actually being at those places and in those moments. Today, we’re taking immersive video even further with 360-degree live streaming on YouTube.

We firstlaunched support for 360-degree videos back in March 2015. Frommusicians toathletes tobrands, creators have done some incredible things with this technology. Now, they’ll be able to do even more to bring fans directly into their world, with 360-degree live streaming. And after years of live streaming Coachella for fans around the world who can’t attend the festival, this year we’re bringing you the festival like never before by live streaming select artist performances in 360-degrees this weekend.

Starting today, we’re also launching spatial audio for on-demand YouTube videos. Just as watching a concert in 360-degrees can give you an unmatched immersive experience, spatial audio allows you to listen along as you do in real life, where depth, distance and intensity all play a role. Try out this playlist on your Android device.

To make sure all creators can tell awesome stories with virtual reality, we’ve been working with companies across the industry. We’re working with companies like VideoStitch and Two Big Ears to make their software compatible with 360-degree live streams or spatial audio on YouTube and more will be available soon. We’ll also make 360-degree live streaming and spatial audio technologies available at all YouTube Space locations around the globe, so you can take it for a spin.

What excites me most about 360-degree storytelling is that it lets us open up the world's experiences to everyone. Students can now experience news events in the classroom as they unfold. Travelers can experience faraway sites and explorers can deep-sea dive, all without the physical constraints of the real world. And today's kids dreaming of going to a basketball game or a concert can access those experiences firsthand, even if they're far away from the court. What were once limited experiences are now available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of Google Play Music. Today we’re going to talk about something near and dear to my heart: podcasts.

People love podcasts. In fact, these days, there are so many podcasts to choose from, it can be hard to pick which one to listen to at any given time. That’s where Google Play Music comes in. Google Play Music already gives you the right kind of music for the right moment—whether you want to have fun at work, prepare for a dance party, or just need to focus—and now, that includes podcasts.

Starting today on the web and rolling out on Android in the U.S. and Canada, we’ll connect you with podcasts based on what you’re doing, how you’re feeling and what you’re interested in. Similar to our contextual playlists for music, we want to make it easy to find the right podcast—whether you’re a podcast aficionado or listening for the first time.

Try “Learning Something New” to talk about at a dinner party and listen to our favorite episodes from Stuff You Should Know or How To Do Everything. Enjoy a Sunday afternoon by “Getting Lost in a Story” with episodes from Radiolab or Reply All, or relax after a long day by “Laughing Out Loud” to Marc Maron’s WTF or Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist. If you find something you love, subscribe to download the last several episodes automatically on your device or choose to be notified every time a new episode comes out.And to all you creators who want to make your podcast available in Google Play Music, check out the podcast portal for more details.
Thanks to our invaluable partners without whom the world would be a boring place. And to all you podcast lovers, keep listening!

This week’s episode is brought to you by Google Play. With Google Play, you can get millions of apps, games, songs, movies & TV shows, books and news sources—all your favorites, all in one place.

April 12, 2016

Whether it’s reading more books, learning a new language or working out regularly, achieving your goals can be really hard. One day it's "I got called into a last-minute meeting." The next day it's "I have a friend in town." And before you know it, your goals are delayed or forgotten. In fact, with all the things you need to do in a given week, it’s probably harder than ever to find the time—even when your goal really matters to you.

That’s why starting today, we’re introducing Goals in Google Calendar. Just add a personal goal—like “run 3 times a week”—and Calendar will help you find the time and stick to it.

Goals are easy to set upTo set a goal (like “Work out more”), simply answer a few questions (like “How often?” and “Best time?”), and you’re all set. From there Calendar will look at your schedule and find the best windows to pencil in time for that goal.

Goals adjust to your busy lifeGoals aren't easy—especially when the unexpected comes up—but Calendar can help you adjust in a number of important ways. For example, Calendar will automatically reschedule if you add another event that's a direct conflict with a goal.

You can also can defer a goal at any time, and Calendar will make time for it later.

Finally, Calendar actually gets better at scheduling the more you use it—just defer, edit or complete your goals like normal, and Calendar will choose even better times in the future.

Calendars should help you make the most of your time—not just be tools to track events. So as Google Calendar turns 10 today (🎉), we're excited to invest in more updates like Goals, and to help you find time for everything that matters—from your daily must-dos, to exercising more, to just a little "me time."

To get started, download the Google Calendar app for Android or iPhone, and set your first goal.

Posted by Jyoti Ramnath, Product Manager

Last spring, Google.org kicked off the Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities, an open call to global non-profits who are building transformative technologies for the billion people around the world with disabilities. We’re thrilled to announce that two Canadian firms are among the winners of that global challenge.

There are one billion people living with disabilities around the world. That’s one billion people that society isn’t engineered to serve. In all, Google.org has awarded $20M today in grants to a wide range of non-profits around the world. The winners were selected from more than 1,000 submissions from 88 different countries around the world.

The organizations we’re supporting all have big ideas for how technology can help create new solutions, and each of their ideas has the potential to scale. Each organization has also committed to speeding up innovation in a sector that has historically been siloed.

Last year, to kick off the challenge in Canada, we supported World Wide Hearing with a grant of $500,000 to help them develop, prototype and test an extremely low cost tool kit for identifying hearing loss using smartphone technology that’s widely available--and affordable--in the developing world.

Based in Toronto, Nia Technologies uses 3D scanning, modelling, and printing technologies to develop better fitting prosthetics for people in developing countries. Funding from Google.org will also enable Nia to create an open source digital platform for the global community of orthopaedic technologists.

Up to 95% of the people in developing countries who need assistive devices are unable to access them. Obstacles to access include a shortage of orthopaedic personnel, labour‐intensive production methods, and significant costs to patients, especially those who have to travel vast distances for treatment.

Early testing indicates that 3D PrintAbility produces robust prosthetic devices in less time than similar devices produced with current manual methods. Nia aims to cut production times from an average of 5 days to as little as 1.5 days. Nia is testing 3D PrintAbility with clinical trials in Uganda and other developing countries in 2016.

How would you use a touch screen mobile device, if you could not use your hands to touch the device? The Neil Squire Society will use its grant from Google.org to release the LipSync, a mouth controlled input device enabling people with disabilities to operate a mobile device.

An estimated 1,000,000 people in Canada and US have limited or no use of their arms—meaning they’re unable to use touchscreen devices that could provide access to helpful apps and services. While solutions exist for desktop computers, they can cost up to $3,000 and do not work well on mobile devices. The LipSync designs will be released open source so that makers can affordably make the solution so that anyone with difficulty using their hands can operate a mobile device using a mouth-operated input controller.

The Neil Squire Society is a Vancouver-based non-profit that was founded by Bill Cameron, who designed a “sip-and-puff” communication for his relative Neil Squire, who was paralyzed from the neck down following a car accident.

Not everyone can make it to the California desert, but it doesn’t mean you have to have fear of missing out on Coachella. Powered by Samsung Canada, Canadian music fans can get closer to the music they love and catch performances from emerging artists to the biggest acts on Coachella’s YouTube Channel from April 15 to 17 on any screen where you watch YouTube.

You can further enhance your experience with several new features on Coachella’s YouTube Channel this year:

You’ll have the freedom to choose from three live stream channels and a video-on-demand hub to see highlights and performance footage throughout the weekend.

You can click on the interactive personalized schedule to customize your live viewing experience. The live stream channel will change automatically based on your schedule.

The channel features an all-inclusive social feed and highlight posts to see images, moments, and discussions around the festival.

As Canadian music continues to dominate charts around the world, the 2016 JUNO Awards boasted one of show’s most talented lineups yet. From hometown favourites like Bryan Adams and Dean Brody to international music icons like The Weeknd and Shawn Mendes, this year’s JUNOS performances put Canada’s influence on the global music scene on full display.

Canadians couldn’t get enough of the incredible performances by some of the world’s biggest talent. Here are some of the most searched JUNOS performances from last night’s show.

Fostering Canada’s burgeoning music industry is one thing, but we also want to make sure that Canada’s next generation of artists have the opportunity to create and share amazing music for years to come. Starting today, for every 90-day free trial sign-up to Google Play Music, we’ll donate one dollar to Musicounts, a charitable organization that keeps music alive in schools and communities across Canada by providing access to a music programming and instruments through local schools and communities.

Streams and downloads of tracks by participating artists include: Shawn Mendes, Dean Brody, Alessia Cara along with Canadian music legends Bryan Adams, Buffy Sainte-Marie and many more. We hope you enjoy all of these performances and help us make a difference in the lives of many by supporting two great causes.

Posted by Andrew Lindsay, Canada Music Business Development Manager, Google Play Music